Sumgait, February 1988. Script

This movie is an accusation. Accusation of a crime against humanity, committed in Soviet Azerbaijan on 27-29 February 1988. Accusation of committing a genocide, that was going on in Sumgait (half an hour drive from the capital – Baku) – free and unpunished.

It is a commonly held opinion that Sumgait was a response to the decision of the people’s deputies of Nagorno Karabakh adopted on February 20 1988 at the session of regional council formally requesting to transfer the oblast from the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR. In reality, Sumgait is a demonstrable manifestation and continuation of consequent policy by the Azerbaijani authorities of discrimination, unpunished killings, deportations, ethnic cleansings and the ousting of Armenian population.

By the end of 1980s, nationalist forces of Azerbaijan escalated their policy of ethnic cleansings, a model for which was taken from Nakhijevan, already ethnically cleansed of Armenians. In the beginning of the 20th century, Armenians comprised 45 per cent of population of Nakhijevan, but by the end of 1970s, they constituted just one percent of total population.

From July to December 1987, the First Secretary of the Shamkhor regional committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party Asadov, with the full support of the party leadership of Azerbaijan, was implementing a policy of ousting of native Armenian population from the village of Chardakhlu – the place of birth of two marshals, three Heroes of the Soviet Union, and five generals. It was the same Asadov who on 14 February 1988 publicly announced that “one hundred thousand Azerbaijanis are ready to storm Karabakh at any time and slaughter” the population there.

On 17 October 1987, news anchor of Radio Liberty Elizabeth Fuller reported that the village of Chardakhlu was encircled and blocked by troops.

The decision of February 20 became Artsakh’s response to the “white genocide,” which had been committed in Azerbaijan over decades. Azerbaijan’s reaction to the constitutional decision of Karabakh’s population was immediate violation. On February 22 a large crowd of residents of the Azerbaijani town of Aghdam moved towards the nearest Armenian-populated village Askeran, smashing up everything on the way and provoking clashes. Deliberately concealing Azerbaijan’s provocation – the murder of two Azeris by their compatriots – deputy chief prosecutor of USSR Aleksandr Katusev announced in a live program of Central TV the names of two victims, emphasizing their Azerbaijani origin.

On February 26, the papers published a message by Secretary General of Central Committee of CPSS Mikhail Gorbachev to the peoples of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia’s response was to cease all large demonstrations. Azerbaijan responded with Sumgait.

These shootings are unique. There was only one institution that possessed the capacity to film the bands of violent pogrom-makers, in an unimpeded and cold-blooded manner, with instructions transferred by radio in Azeri: The State Security Committee of AzSSR (KGB), the offspring of KGB General Heydar Aliev.

George Soros wrote in an article published in 1989 in Znamya magazine: “The assumptions that the first Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan were spurred by local mafia, managed by former KGB boss of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliev, are not that far from reality”.

On February 26 party bosses of Azerbaijan arrived in Sumgait – the First secretary of Central Committee of Azerbaijan Kyamran Bagirov, secretary of Central Committee of Azerbaijan Gasanov and head of department of central committee of Communist party of Azerbaijan Asadov.

The same day a demonstration was held on the central Lenin square in Sumgait. The so-called refugees from Armenian Kapan appeared there, who had been prepared in advance to ignite the crowd. They were enflaming the people with false announcements of alleged violence in Armenia, killings and deportations of Azeris. A call came “Death to Armenians!”

On February 27 the massacre of Armenians began. Those were not stopped by law enforcement bodies or the authorities. The authorities and police, as it became clear later, were busy with something different: there were preparing the pogrom-makers for the main activity.

On February 28 the pogroms and killings took a mass and sadist nature. Armed with previously prepared metal pipes, axes, hammers, knives, the gangs were quick in finding the Armenian apartments and storming them. The people were killed in their own houses, but more often were taken out into the street or the backyard for public humiliation.

On February 28 troops entered the town, armed with blank cartridges and an order to not interfere. In front of the eyes of soldiers and officers of the Soviet army, the particularly sophisticated murders of Armenian were occurring.

These pages of the indictment have grown yellow with time, but the details described here are still shocking to the mind and traumatizing to the soul. They testify to the unprecedented cruelty and sadism used while murdering the Armenians of Sumgait. Out of mercy to the audience, even today, 22 years later, we are not able to voice all the details of Sumgait. On the session of Political Bureau of Central Committee of the Communist Party of USSR on 29 February 1998 in response to Gorbachev’s request to tell, how the Armenians were killed, Defense Minister Yazov said: “Two women had their breasts cut off, one woman’s head was cut off, the skin was removed from a girl. The students of military college, who saw the bodies of tortured Armenians, would faint.”

“Close to building number 26, a group of hooligans, organized by Akhmedov, in front of the eyes of many residents of the district, united by common intent, armed with axes, metal pipes, rods and other items, aware of the specifically cruel nature of their actions and infliction of special sufferings to their victims, began beating of the members of the Melkumyan family and Misha Hambartsumyan, striking numerous blows into the heads and other vital parts of the bodies”.

Misha Hambartsumyan, born in 1941, was killed in the street, with burns covering two thirds of the body, with a fracture of the skull, and brain hemorrhage.

Witness Muradov Jamal Ismalim-oghly: “Houses were raided there. And our police were just standing near and watching… The bandits were functioning rapidly. They were quick in identifying the flats of the Armenians, I do not know – how. A guy with a microphone was managing the crowd, everybody was listening to him. The gang was armed. There were people of different age in the crowd, even 3-4 years old kids… I could see a lot of police who were watching and doing nothing, as if it was not their business at all. There were a lot of big stones in the centre. I do not know how they appeared there. We did not have those big stones before. I saw a man burning close to a burned car, and I got scared. It is only the barbarians that can do this. There was a woman who was beaten up severely. Then I saw dead bodies along the street. A bit farther there was a naked woman lying, all in blood. It was very scary; I had never seen such things before. Then I saw a guy trampling on a head of a live man».

Seda Danielyan, born in 1938, was taken out into the street with her husband and son and killed after being taunted. Her husband, Nikolay Danielyan, was killed as well. Their son was saved in the hospital.

Witness Valeriya Kozubenko, who tried to hide an Armenian family in her house: «The bandits that entered our house were armed with rods, big knives. The metal rods were of the same length, as if deliberately cut out for this. All of those bandits, all of them without exception, were dressed in black and nearly all of them – young. From 28 February all our telephones were cut off».

Artash Arakelyan. Killed on February 29. hemorrhage into the brain. Fractures of bones of the skull, ribs with lungs damaged. Blunt trauma of the body. Charred corpse.

His wife Asya Arakelyan only managed to escape death due to a miracle. She managed to survive severe beating and burning attempts.

On 20 March 1988 newspaper Communist of Sumgait in an article What were Title. Assistant to the chief prosecutor of USSR N.Yemelyanov.

Title. We certainly knew that the situation was tense there, the information was there. Then a special group was established in the Prosecutors Office of the USSR. And if needed we were supposed to fly there and take decisive steps to prevent disorders, and most importantly – secure quality investigation of the crimes that had been committed there. By the end of February we already were expecting that all those demonstrations and talks could shift to violence, as the situation was extremely tense. And we got to Sumgait precisely at the moment of all those disorders. That was a picture, of course… I have been into investigations for quite long, and my people are very experienced, but we were strongly depressed with all that. Everything is burning, apartments are raided, dead bodies, women are raped, and wildly raped – by 20-30 people. This bacchanalia continued for a few days. The law enforcement bodies, police in particular, never assisted the citizens – people of Armenian nationality.

police watching? wrote: I called police three times, – a woman was saying on the phone excitedly, while the hooligans were breaking into a neighbor’s door. Each time the answer was “Police is out there”, but nobody ever came.

From protocol of a session of the Supreme Court of USSR, 3 November 1988:

It has been established that from 27 to 28 February 1988 the law enforcement bodies of Azerbaijan were inactive, being only a passive watcher of the gross violations of order, and never reacted to numerous messages regarding the unrests in the city, killings of Armenians and pillages, other crimes, including those in district 41a.

The instigative role of the former First secretary of Sumgait city committee of the Communist party Jakhangir Muslim-Zadeh is proved by the telegram, attached to the present solicitation.

Witness Guliev: The pogrom-makers had special rods and mountings, approximately 70 cm long, as if deliberately made for pogroms. There were no police in the city, I never saw… The telephone lines were cut, cobblestones were brought in with purpose… The bandits had clubs and helmets, which they took away from the soldiers. Those pogroms were not prepared in just one day… It took them long to prepare to them.

From indictment of the Board of Supreme Court of Azerbaijan SSR on felonies of the first instance from 5 June 1988: the accused Kerimov, together with a group of participants of mass unrests, went to factories StalConstruction and Reinforced Constructions by car, loaded the car with cuttings of metal mountings and brought them to the district 41a to allocate to the participants of mass disorders.

” …Mnatsakan, disabled from the World War II, was working as a turner. He was saying that few days before he received an order to prepare metal mountings, to cut them and sharpen. Later he saw those items in the hands of the pogrom-makers.”

Viktor Loshak in his article Sumgait. Epilogue of the Tragedy, published in Moscow News on 22 May 1988 wrote: “It still needs to identify, how it happened that on February 28 and 29 many phone lines in the city were cut off, who will be responsible for those calming answers: “Stay at home”, whereas the people needed urgent evacuation”.

“In the days of complicated situation, axes, knives and other items that could be used by the bandits were made in the section of a tube-rolling factory”, newspaper Communist of Sumgait reported on 13 May 1988.

Extremely important testimony was provided by witness Iljasov during the trial.

«I reckon they knew the addresses of the Armenians in advance. I came to this conclusion because the pogrom-makers were entering precisely the buildings were Armenians lived. In the morning of 28 I noticed in the town piles of stones that blocked the streets so nobody could leave. Among those stones, apart broken bricks and slag that are usually found on the dumps, there were blocks that are not to be found anywhere, you need to bring them deliberately”. Prosecutor: where did the crowd take the metal rods from? The witness: «First of all, they could be acquired at our factory. As well as at other factories, I had never seen those before».

Prosecutor: «Did you have an impression that it had been planned in advance, that those rods were made intentionally, the stones had been brought in intentionally, the addresses where Armenians lived were identified with purpose?» Witness: «I can say yes, though would not state it for sure. When the crowd arrived in our district, the pogrom-makers were storming the houses where Armenians used to live. And the fact that they were asking the addresses of Armenians by a megaphone, was just a demonstration, pressure on people’s minds. In reality, they knew all the addresses, they were acting unmistakably. And all that was not out of hooligan intentions, that was an action specifically against the Armenian people, against Armenians. Not against Russians or other nations, but against Armenians. They were looking particularly for Armenians».

It became clear during the trial that during the pogroms all the roads, exits and accesses to and from Sumgait were blocked by groups of armed pogrom-makers who were stopping the transport and looking for Armenians in there. This is how Gariy Martirosov was killed, who headed from Baku to Sumgait to pick up his family. The minivan was stopped by the pogrom-makers; Martirosov was taken out, beaten and then burned.

This is just a small portion of numerous witness testimonies and extracts of documents of the lawsuits, proving that Sumgait had been a long and well-planned, managed and controlled genocide of Armenian people. The condominiums had lists of flats were Armenians lived. In those flat the telephones were cut off. Cold weapon was being produced on Sumgait factories, petroleum was stored to burn the bodies, property and apartment of the Armenians. There had been a criminal agreement with the local authorities, police and doctors. During the demonstrations specially prepared provokers were instigating the crowd, turning the people into zombies. In the districts where pogroms were happening the electricity was cut off. A strict coordination of activities and discipline was established inside of the bands. The Armenians were advised not to go out to work and not to leave their homes. After 10-15 minutes of a call to the police the pogrom-makers would appear in the flat.

According to the witnesses, many of the pogrom-makers were singing joyfully and playing the piano, while their crime partners dealt with the owners of the flats.

This is a shooting by the Attorney General’s office of USSR, recorded on March 1. One day later elimination of the horrifying consequences of the genocide will begin.

In the streets and backyards of Sumgait dead bodies were removed, and the blood was wiped out, broken furniture was destroyed completely, as well as the items that had been thrown out of the windows. The dead bodies were moved to Baku and other towns of the country.

Witness Tahmazov: «…There was an order from representative of the central committee of the communist party of Azerbaijan Ganifaev to burn and cover with soil all the raided items. This was done, in a very rapid manner. The next morning the city council sent in a construction and renovation division into the 41st district, and they removed all the dead bodies. »

Dead bodies of those who were born in Sumgait, lived there and worked for the good of the town were removed from its streets – men and women, young and old.

Lola Avagyan, 27. On February 29 after attack on her flat she was taken out of her home; they undressed her, forced her to dance, poked her with knives, cut her breasts, extinguished cigarettes on her body, and raped. Lola Avagyan was pregnant at her 6th month.

Zinaida Mudretsova, who had provided valuable evidence on Sumgait cases, was arrested by Azerbaijani authorities and sent to prison based on a false accusation.

Sumgait was established in 1949, 26 km away from Azerbaijan’s capital – Baku. The Soviet press named this town a model of international friendship. Out of 250,000 populations 18,000 were Armenians, who believed the myth of “the town of the future”, intensively advocated by the official propaganda. February 1988 blast this myth from the inside. In just three days Sumgait was thrown back from ostentatious civility to wildness, cultivated by the politicians. Majority of Sumgait Armenians were killed on the streets of Friendship and Peace of the international city.

What the zombie creatures were performing on the streets of the Azerbaijani town, entered the history for ever with one frightening name – Sumgait.

Armo Aramyan, 60. Arthur Aramyan, 25. Father and son were killed at the same time, the mother narrowly escaped death.

Elena Babayan, 56. She was beaten on February 28 on her way home, spent over two weeks in her house motionless. The ambulance refused to take her into hospital. She died on March 16.

Irina Melkumyan used to sit at a school desk just like this, in a regular school in Sumgait. At 27 she was burned after tortures, violence and humiliation. Irina was killed on February 29 together with her parents Soghomon and Raisa Melkoumyan and brothers Igor and Edik. All of them were subject to severe tortures and humiliation before death, and they all were burned.

Emma Grigoryam 58. She was taken out into the backyard naked, forced to sit on the bench, and then her body was burnt with cigarettes. Then they raped her, broke the ribs and the head.

Firuza Melkouman, 70. She was savagely beaten, then her body was chopped to pieces with an axe. Her screams were heard all around the block, but nobody came to save her.

Brothers Albert Avanesyan, 35, and Valeriy Avanesyan, 31. Both were killed in the street near their house after savage beatings.

Titles. Rimma Avanesyan, mother of the deceased.

Shahen Sargsyan, 62. He was thrown out of his car by a raging crowd, beaten up and killed. Vladimir Arushanyan, 52, killed. His wife Razmella was doomed lost, but later it became clear that after beating and humiliation she was also killed. Aleksandr Gambaryan, 62. He was killed in his house by a blow of a crowbar into his head. Arshak Babayan, aged 57, was killed in his house after a severe beating. Juriy Avagyan, 52. After attack on his flat he was taken out into the street, beaten, cut into pieces and burnt on a fire.

Yersilya Movsesova, 86 years, who had lived in Baku and was killed in Sumgait. 31 knife wounds were identified on the body of the aged woman.

Those days the genetic memory of Armenian people was insistently pressing: this is the same genocide, the same methods, the same butchers.

It was the same genetic memory that kept prompting the Armenians necessity for self-defense to protect own families. Researcher of Sumgait events Samvel Shahmuradyan wrote: ”Sumgait is the victory of human spirit over brutal”. Neighbors Rafik Tovmasyan and Gabriel Trdatov together with the members of their families were defending from the wild crowd for 8 hours. They died like heroes, but saved their families. The self-defense of Armenians of Sumgait is the victory of spirit over nothingness.

Drunk with blood and unleashed in permissiveness, the pogrom-makers started to attack the military servicemen, who were forced to inactivity by Kremlin. According to the reports, over 270 military people suffered. It was only when the wild crowd tore a soldier to pieces in front of other soldiers, his comrades directed a tank to the murderers, who lost human face. Only after this Moscow introduced curfew. Immediately after the troops began acting, mass killings and pogroms stopped.

The rescued Armenians, protected by the troops, were brought into the building of Sumgait city council, a culture club, garrisons and barracks. Thousand of people were kept in terrifying conditions for a few days. After a baby died in one of those building because of anti-sanitary conditions, the Armenians were forced to leave the premises to avoid epidemic.

The massacre of Armenians was going on in Sumgait for three days in a still strong Soviet Union. Not only in Baku, but in Moscow either nobody hurried to rescue the civilians. On February 29, when blood was shedding in Sumgait, Gorbachev hypocritically said at a session of Political Bureau of Communist party of USSR: “Should we not take those measures, a massacre could happen at any time”. Defense Minister Yazov was bringing horrifying details of the massacre, emphasizing that it is necessary to bring in the troops. But the secretary-general was concerned with something different: how to prevent a possible reaction in Armenia. “We have to act decisively and finally. We need to close down the access so transportation does not function, so the air-planes do not fly from Yerevan”. Later Gorbachev would voice a phrase, unique in its cynicism: “In Sumgait, the troops were late for 3 hours”, thus confirming own fault in Sumgait Genocide.

On March 1, Izvestiya published a small report. “On February 28 in Sumgait (Azerbaijan SSR) a group of hooligans provoked disorders. Cases of outrage and violence were noted…»”. This sentence is not just a newspaper canard. This is a message initiated by Gorbachev to consider what had happened a deed by “separate groups of hooligans”, and to explain the mass and outrageous killings by merely hooligan intentions.

Later on, expressions “out of hooligan intentions” and “separate groups of hooligans” were noted on 100 pages of the indictment 84 times.

Out of fear of responsibility to the world community for the genocide, for the crime centrally managed and controlled, the crime was split into several lawsuits. Four cases were tried at the Supreme Court of the USSR and district courts of Russian Federation. Majority of cases were transferred to the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan SSR and People’s Court of Sumgait. It is hard to believe but only when the Supreme Court of USSR was having its session in Moscow, all other trials were taking place in Sumgait and Baku, whereas the relatives of the victims and witnesses were demanding trials to be held outside the borders of Azerbaijan, and certainly not in Sumgait. It was not by chance that the injured party often had to leave the courtroom to protest against the lawsuit, as it happened in Moscow, or due to intolerable and dangerous for life atmosphere, as it happened in Sumgait.

Extract from audio recording of a court session in Sumgait.

Just one hundred people faced the trial, nearly 80 were sentenced. Only one of them – Akhmedov – was sentenced to death, majority went away with a few years of imprisonment, many were sentenced conditionally and set free in the court room. From accusation speech of prosecutor Kozlovskiy at a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of USSR (Titles). The accused was calling on the residents of block 41a to identify the apartments where citizens of Armenian origin lived, was explaining to them that the crowd of people who came with him intends to raid those apartments, destroy the property of the Armenians and the Armenians, who resided in that district. The organizers of the crime had never been identified; thousands of butchers remained free.

The commonly accepted fact of Sumgait being well-organized forced its real organizers to come to absurd allegations. The forceful participation of a previously sentenced Armenian is still being presented as a proof that Sumgait has indeed been organized, but by the Armenians themselves. However, one of contemporary Azerbaijani politicians announced publicly in 2003 that organizers of Sumgait today are seated in Milli Mejlis – Azerbaijan’s Parliament.

On March 3, refugees began arriving to Armenia. All 18,000 Armenians living in Sumgait fled from the town. Hundreds were tortured and became disabled. Many of those who escaped owe their lives to their friends and neighbors: Azeris, Russians, Lezgins. With that, many were just mercilessly closing the door for those, with whom they lived side by side many years; some – out of fear, others – because of solidarity with the pogrom-makers. But it was not those who hid the Armenians in their flats that became heroes in Azerbaijan. It was just the opposite: those who were chasing Armenians, tortured them, raped and killed, displaying specific cruelty and brutality that became the heroes.

The Soviet authorities did everything to bury down the truth about Sumgait. The information in the press was too narrow and misleading. The foreign media did not tell the entire truth either. In June 1988 Russian Idea newspaper, issues in Paris, was informing horrifying details of Sumgait, asking a rhetoric question: “Can this crime remain unpunished?” The same newspaper informed that pogrom-makers stormed into Sumgait maternity hospital and threw the new-born kids out of the windows. The witnesses were speaking of numerous cases of violence against children. A three-year old kid was badly beaten; a baby was tied with a rope to his neck and carried along the street, whereas the dead body of his mother was thrown out into a bus stop. These and other cases must discredit the cynical myth that those barbarians were not touching children.

Materials of the lawsuit prove that metal pipes, handles of shovels and sharp skewers were put into the vagina of several women before they were killed.

In July 1988 British Guardian wrote in article Nagorno_Karabakh is a test that perestroika might not survive by Jonathan Steele: In the town of Sumgait in February, after the first demands for Nagorno-Karabakh’s session were made, 26 Armenians were murdered by rampaging Azerbaijani crowds in a tribal orgy which shocked the country. Azerbaijani police did nothing to prevent it.”

Academician Andrey Sakharov: “If anyone could doubt it before Sumgait, then after this tragedy no one has a moral possibility to insist on preserving of territorial ownership of Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan”.

22 years later, on the occasion of Sumgait anniversary, American congressman Frank Pallone said: “ These crimes were never adequately prosecuted by the Government of Azerbaijan, and most of its organizers and executors were simply set free, many of whom are presently members of the Azeri Parliament.. The Sumgait massacres are just another in a long line of Azerbaijan’s aggressions against the Armenian people.”

This movie is an accusation. Accusation of genocide. In contrast to official number of murdered – 26, during three days in February in Sumgait hundreds of Armenians were killed. The following facts prove this:

1. The bodies of killed Armenians were scattered around all the morgues of towns and villages of Azerbaijan, which never allowed to establish the real number of victims. The testimonies of people who were seeking the bodies of their relatives and of medical workers prove that in March 1988 there were hundreds of dead Armenians in Azerbaijani morgues.

2. A simple comparison of figures in the mortality registry of Sumgait and obvious inconsistencies also proves the fact of criminal falsifications with the objective to hide real numbers of killed people. In 2003 in the movie Heydar Aliyev. The burden of Power, produced by Azerbaijan’s order, the author of the movie Andrey Konchalovskiy said:

“The response to the tragedy in Karabakh was the bloody events in industrial centre Sumgait, where over 100 Armenians were killed overnight.”

3. Many of the victims whose bodies were photographed in the morgues were not included into the official list of killed.

4. Viktor Krivopuskov in his Rebellious Karabakh writes: People were killed in their own houses, but more often they were taken out into the street or into the backyard for public humiliation. Few were lucky to die immediately of a strike with a knife or an axe. Tortures and humiliation were awaiting the majority of the victims. The people were beaten until they fainted, then flame was thrown on them, and they were burned alive. There was no mercy for elderly or for children. A few hundreds of Armenians were killed in 3 days. The exact number of casualties had not been possible to recover.

The Soviet authorities in the person of Gorbachev did not even condescend to expressing condolences to the families of the victims. And on September 20, 1989 in his speech at the plenary session of Central Committee of the Communist party of USSR Gorbachev said: “We succeeded in accepting the party platform on national problems, which is a new word in the issues of national policy”.

The trials of murderers of Sumgait were under way in 1988-1990, against the background of increasing wave of state terrorism, ethnic cleansings, pogroms, killings, forceful deportation of Armenians all over Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was waging an undeclared war against Armenians. Sumgait had been planned and implemented in accordance with the policy of genocide of Armenian nation and ultimate acquisition pf territories of its historic habitation. The authorities of Azerbaijan were involving into implementation of this policy not only governing bodies of all levels, but general public as well, turning their compatriots into accomplices of crime against humanity.

This film is a tribute to the memory of innocent victims of Sumgait and all the genocides of the 20th century. The policy of aggressive racism against Armenians, that had been under way all those years, has led to dehumanization of Azeri society. It was not by chance that Ramil Safarov, who axed a sleeping Armenian officer during NATO military exercise in the frames of Partnership for Peace program in 2004 in Hungary, was announced a national hero of Azerbaijan, just like some time before – killers from Sumgait. Just as is not by chance the continuing Azerbaijani policy of ethnocide in regards to monuments of Armenian cultural heritage in once Armenian Nakhijevan.

Pavel Gevorkyan, author of a diary of lawsuit on crimes against Armenian population of Sumgait, w ho participated in the sessions of the Supreme Court as a translator, wrote: “People need the truth about this atrocity independently of their ethnicity. It is needed for this not to reoccur at any place or time, just like the materials of Nuremberg are necessary for the humanity to avoid the «brown plague».

Sumgait has no expire date. The non-recognition of genocide and impunity of its organizers is a crime in itself. This movie is as well an address to the international community with appeal to call Azerbaijan to responsibility for crimes against humanity. Sumgait still awaits its assessment. The Nuremberg for Sumgait is still ahead.